any parts degreaser solvent recommendations NOT gasoline

[Huw Powell]

> Most materials used in a residential dishwasher have not been tested for
> compatibility with many chemicals that you might use for degreasing. I
> would be concerned about environmental stress cracking of plastic
> components.

Good point, although...

> I have heard that more than one major appliance manufacturer has been sued
> by Darwin awards contenders doing things like using a dishwasher with a
> flammable solvent to degrease parts and then burning their house down.

Perhaps my dna is sufficiently well coiled to at least be thinking along 
the lines of using non-flammable degreasers.

It would be fun, to take a used/junk dishwasher (ie, free), set it up in 
the garage, with a pumped feed supply/filtered reservoir comprising a 
few gallons of something like simple green and let it rip.

There wouldn't be a real "rinse" cycle since the only fluid would be the 
simple green, but it might work well enough and long enough to be worth 
the trouble of setting it up.  The only pita would be setting up the 
external pressurized supply thing.

Might be enough to just pour the simple green into the machine up to 
capacity and keep 'rewinding' the knob so all it does is spray, spray, 
spray.  Eventually let it discharge itself and capture the dirty solvent 
in a bucket.

If it worked well, you could hack the control knob wiring and replace it 
with two switches - "run" and "drain."  Let experience teach you whether 
you want to use the "water" heater while running or not.

Of course, you will have as a by-product a bucket of grossly 
contaminated degreaser, which would require proper disposal, say, behind 
a tree near your neighbors well.

If and when the fittings finally give up the ghost, you've got a couple 
gallons of simple green on the garage floor, good time to scrub up all 
the accumulated crud there...

-- 
Huw Powell

http://www.humanspeakers.com/audi

http://www.humanthoughts.org/